


More Than Meets the Eye

by whitachi



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitachi/pseuds/whitachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/789614">Busted</a>. Dinner is awkward when not everyone at the table is the same level of nerd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Meets the Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Busted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/789614) by [ladysisyphus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus), [whitachi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitachi/pseuds/whitachi). 



The only reason he'd gotten himself into this situation was because, given enough time and instances of "Aw, c'mon, dude!", Stacey could eventually talk Garrett into anything. It was how he ended up bungee jumping, how he ended up eating all that wasabi, and how he ended up at dinner with Cherise. At least the jump and the wasabi had been bracing and vaguely life-affirming--this was just a long drawn out test of how awkward he could feel.  
  
"And so we had to take three cars!" Cherise said, tailing up some long anecdote about a weekend trip to Tahoe she'd taken Stacey on with three of her girlfriends and their hapless boyfriends. "I _told_ Stacey, if he would just get rid of that truck and get a normal car things would be a lot more simple."  
  
It wasn't that Cherise was a _bad person_. She was perfectly fine, reasonably polite, and generally not _outright_ bitchy in an average situation, but she just had a way about her that made Garrett want to put a tack in his shoe. Cory had his back on this one, too, so it wasn't just the beast of jealousy painting her in a bad light. Although that definitely, _definitely_ helped. Or didn't help, as the case may be.  
  
"Well, uh, it's kind of useful for work..." Garrett said while shredding the edges of the napkin in his lap into rumpled little balls. Stacey just looked a little elsewhere for all this, and that had to be the worst part, how _different_ Stacey was when he was around her. It was like someone had turned the burner down to low on him, barely keeping him at a simmer while he nodded and agreed and capitulated. He had his arm across the back of Cherise's chair as he nodded, like she had a good point.  
  
Cherise made a face, a little wrinkling up of her perfectly-plucked eyebrows and a pinching of her lined lips. "You could at least get a _newer_ truck, Stacey." She tilted her head towards him, lower lip pouting out a little. "They are paying you enough at that job of yours, aren't they?"  
  
"Oh, yeah, sure, I guess they are," Stacey said, and his eyes fixed on Garrett and suddenly snapped into focus as that bright, broad grin came back on his face. "Oh, man, it could be totally sweet. I could get a truck like _Ironhide_."  
  
Garrett felt something uncoil inside him, some tense string unwinding. "Are we talking Gen 2 Ironhide or movie Ironhide? Because we both know he was originally a minivan."  
  
"Oh, man, can you see me rocking a minivan? I'd be the best soccer mom." Stacey bounced a little in his chair and took his arm off the back of Cherise's seat. "But no, like serious truck Ironhide. High-tech circuitry is no replacement for guts! And, man, we both know that movie was hella dumb, but you know the transformations were sweet. Rrrr arrr kkssh krrr krraa!" He made surprisingly accurate transformation noises while putting his arms at strange angles, and Garrett felt himself really smiling for the first time in the whole meal.  
  
Stacey's arm was held up at a right angle while the other was straight out in front of him reaching out towards Garrett when Cherise pushed her seat back and stood up. "I'm going to the ladies' room," she said, grabbed her purse, and headed off in something between a stalk and a flounce. Stacey made one last deflated 'rrrkh' Transformer noise and put his arms down. He smiled a little sheepishly at Garrett and picked up his empty water glass to clink the ice cubes around in it.  
  
"Maybe not so much like Ironhide." He sighed a little and knocked the ice cubes back into his mouth, crunching them loudly. "Hey, seriously, thanks for coming tonight, man. It's more fun if we can all do things together."  
  
"Yeah, sure, it's no problem," Garrett lied. "But I think we better, uh, transform and roll out soon."  
  
"Yeah, she gets a little grumpy after she eats," Stacey said, reaching for the check and stuffing some bills in the holder, waving Garrett away before he could chip in for his part. "Blood sugar or something like that. Who knows, right?"  
  
"Yeah, something like that," Garrett said, and watched as the focus went out of Stacey's eyes as Cherise came back to the table. "Right."


End file.
